by Paula Gail Benson
Sometimes life issues make writing difficult. Whether the situation involves health, loss, or disillusionment, it can take a physical toll that affects the desire and initiative to create.
Lately, I’ve
been going through a time of working through a number of difficult situations.
I heard that a former principal used to tell his teachers not to consider
challenges as problems, but as opportunities. I found a definition of
opportunity as “a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something.”
However, when you are feeling defeated before you start, accomplishment seems
impossible.
William Sydney Porter
Wikipedia
As I considered
this dilemma, I remembered reading about the life of short story author O.
Henry, whose “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Ransom of Red Chief” are
considered classics of the form. Henry, born William Sidney Porter, later
changed the spelling of his middle name to Sydney. He struggled and faced
heartbreak, yet he produced at least 381 stories in his lifetime.
I reviewed the details of O. Henry’s life in Wikipedia to see what I could learn about his perseverance. He was born in North Carolina. His parents married just before the beginning of the United States’ Civil War. His mother passed away when he was three years old. He grew up in his paternal grandmother’s home with his father who was a doctor. By the time he was nineteen, he had qualified to become a pharmacist. He traveled to Texas, hoping to improve his health (he had a persistent cough).
The change in climate did help. In Texas, he became a popular bachelor and fell in love. Her family did not approve, so they eloped. They had a daughter. Eventually, he went to work for a bank. Unfortunately, he did not keep careful records and ultimately was accused of embezzling $854.08 (approximately $32,685.34 in 2025). As he was changing trains on the way to the courthouse, he became scared and ran away to Honduras, which had no extradition treaty with the United States. During his time there, he wrote the novel Cabbages and Kings and, in it, coined the phrase “banana republic.”
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| Poter as teller in First National Bank in Austin Wikipedia |
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| Porter family, wife Athol, daughter Margaret, and author Wikipedia |
Upon hearing
that his wife was ill, he returned to the United States. He was convicted and
his wife passed away while he was imprisoned. He served his sentence in Ohio
where, because of his expertise, he worked in the prison pharmacy. While he was
incarcerated, he wrote stories under the name O. Henry. To avoid being revealed
as an inmate, he sent the stories to a friend in New Orleans who forwarded them
to publishers.
He was released early for good behavior and reunited with his daughter. They moved to New York where he wrote one story a week for the New York World Sunday Magazine. He married his childhood sweetheart, who also had become a writer, but she left him after two years. He returned to his native North Carolina and died at the young age of forty-seven.
He is buried at Riverside Cemetery in Asheville. His daughter is buried beside him.
Visitors to his grave often leave $1.87, the amount of money his character Della had in savings at the beginning of “The Gift of the Magi.” Cemetery attendants have collected the funds and given them to local libraries.
O. Henry's Grave at Riverside Cemetery
From: Find a Grave
When I consider the hardships O. Henry faced—loss of mother, personal health issues, marrying against his in-law’s wishes, being accused of embezzlement, running away, returning to connect with his wife just before she died, being convicted and serving time in prison, using a pseudonym to avoid revealing he was an inmate, having a short second marriage, and dying early, probably from health-related issues—I am amazed at the collection of his work. The fact that he has touched and continues to influence lives with Della’s story in “The Gift of the Magi” is a tremendous legacy.
Have you ever had to write your way through sadness or hardship? How did you cope?
This happened to me when my mother died. At the time,‘I had been zipping along and had just reached the middle of the first Sarah Blair mystery, One Taste Too Many. After her death, I couldn’t write for several months. When I began again, my joy in writing was missing as I finished the book. It was obvious. I hated the second half. I took some time away from the book and realized in my haste to finish, I had pushed the characters instead of listening to them. I threw out the second half and rewrote it (with joy this time ). That book was selected as a featured Woman’s World Book of the Week. Writing through hard times isn’t easy but it can end up being a form of comfort.
ReplyDeleteEven more minor setbacks, like the major surgery I had last week are enough to drain me of energy. Only previous commitments (and my core principle of meeting them) were sufficient to get me making forward progress. But the tasks I left myself were less creative and more mundane, so makes it easier to (slowly) accomplish them.
ReplyDeleteYears after they occurred, I wrote my way out of several traumatic incidents, only to be told by beta readers, "It doesn't happen like that." Maybe not on TV, but in real life, it does happen.
ReplyDeleteLife happens, and interferes with our plans. I continue to write--it's an important part of my life--but I no longer care much whether I'm "successful" or not. I like to share my work, although even if a story goes nowhere, I have accomplished the most important part, which is to write it. And it's a way to deal with frustration and sorrow.
ReplyDeleteWhat a touching story. I hope that your situations are easing. It is difficult to write through sadness. In 2008 I was diagnosed with cancer. The road to recovery was long with chemo and radiation. I wrote to get through it. In fact, it was one of my most productive periods. The stories weren’t mysteries, instead, they were happy, hopeful, tales and most were published in the Trues series of magazines.
ReplyDeletePaula,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post about O. Henry. I knew nothing about his life and what he had to endure. Still he wrote.
I didn't write the last seven months of my husband's life when he was in hospitals and rehabs, though I did write a bit while I was getting treatment for lymphoma. However, when I got back to writing, my books suddenly got a lot of recognition. I'll never know the impact that difficult times may have had on my writing.
I wrote the above comment and forgot to put in my name.:)
DeleteFascinating story, and you are so right about the difficulties channeling creativity during tough times. Hope life gets easier/better soon!
ReplyDeleteWhen my mom died, in 1988, my dad asked if I would keep her ashes until the whole family could get together the next summer to bury them. He said he was worried he'd lose track of them, but I'm pretty sure that having them at home was too painful for him. A box of ashes really is such a small, sad reminder of the lovely person who's gone. I cried buckets the whole way back to my house with them. But I got over that and in a weird way it felt like Mom had come to live with me. To deal with the weirdness, I wrote a story with a character in the same situation (and of course added a mystery). That turned out to be the first story I sold to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.
ReplyDelete